Cuttack, June 23: A special squad led by an assistant commissioner of police (ACP) claims to be closing in on gangster Md Sakil who is alleged to be reviving extortion and organised crime in the city.

The cops suspect Sakil to be hiding in the periphery of Cuttack. But sources said Sakil frequently changed his hideouts between Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur to evade arrest, according to telephone communications tracked by the police.

The police nabbed Sakil's aide Raja alias Jitendra Bastia in Tulsipur on Wednesday and claimed that the nascent gang was more or less eliminated with the arrest.

Sources in police said Sakil, a former member of the Kendrapada-based Tito gang, started operating his own gang in Cuttack after his release from jail in January.

He, and a handful of associates, had started executing bombings and firings in broad daylight while allegedly running an extortion racket.